Ребёнок любит макать хлеб в суп.

The child likes to dip bread into the soup.

Breakdown of Ребёнок любит макать хлеб в суп.

• любить: to love
• суп: the soup
• хлеб: the bread
• ребёнок: the child

Questions & Answers about Ребёнок любит макать хлеб в суп.

What case is Ребёнок in, and how do I know it is the subject of the sentence?

Ребёнок is in the nominative singular case.

In a simple Russian sentence, the subject is normally:

• in the nominative case
• placed near the beginning of the sentence
• the word the verb agrees with in number (singular/plural)

Here:

• Ребёнок – nominative singular
• любит – 3rd person singular verb
• word order: Ребёнок (subject) + любит (verb) + макать хлеб в суп (what he likes to do)

So Ребёнок must be the subject: The child likes…

Why is there no word for a / the before ребёнок, хлеб, and суп?

Russian has no articles (no a/an, no the).

Definiteness or indefiniteness is understood from context, word order, and sometimes stress/intonation, not from a separate word.

So:

• Ребёнок любит макать хлеб в суп.
  can be translated as:
  • The child likes to dip bread into soup.
  • A child likes to dip bread into soup.
  • The child likes dipping the bread into the soup.

English has to choose an article; Russian simply does not mark this grammatically.